Pianist to Preview Upcoming New York Recital at Free Oct. 22 Performance in OWU’s Jemison Auditorium

Gulimina Mahamuti will perform a free concert on campus Oct. 22.

DELAWARE, OH–For many musicians, performing in New York’s historic Carnegie Hall marks a professional milestone.

Gulimina Mahamuti, part-time assistant professor of music at Ohio Wesleyan University, will achieve that milestone Jan. 8, 2012, when she performs in Carnegie Hall’s elegant Weill Recital Hall. She will perform solo and with violinist Selim Giray, associate professor of violin and viola at Pittsburg State University.

Before they take the stage at Carnegie Hall, Mahamuti and Giray will perform a free preview recital at Ohio Wesleyan at 3:15 p.m. Oct. 22 in Jemison Auditorium in Sanborn Hall, 23 Elizabeth St.

In September, they were invited to perform at the opening concert to celebrate the year of the nation of Turkey at Queens College of The City University of New York and they completed a three-day Midwest concert tour.

A native of Karamay City in western China, Mahamuti is the first Chinese Uighur to receive a doctorate of musical arts in piano performance in the United States. Her performances have taken her to Canada, major cities throughout China (with broadcasts on radio and State television), and the Midwest and East Coast of the United States. As a guest pianist, she performed Camille Saint-Saens’ “Le carnaval des animaux” with the Southeast Kansas Symphony Orchestra during the 2010-2011 concert season and will perform “Benjamin Britten’s Piano Concerto, op. 13” with the Mansfield (Ohio) Symphony on April 14, 2012.

At the Oct. 22 OWU recital, and during her subsequent Carnegie Hall performance, Mahamuti will perform solo Chinese Xinjiang-style piano music by Chen Yi and Shi Fu, as well as Turkish violin-piano music by Adnan Saygun, Muammer Sun, Emre Aracı, and others.

Mahamuti received her Doctorate of Musical Arts in Piano Performance from the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music. She holds two Master of Music degrees, one in Piano Performance with Graduate Dean Academic Honors from Pittsburg State University and one in Piano Performance and Piano Pedagogy from Harbin Normal University in China. She is a board member of Central East District of Ohio Music Teachers Association and chairs its piano workshops. As a new faculty member at Ohio Wesleyan, Mahamuti teaches applied piano, class piano, and keyboard techniques.

For more information about Mahamuti, visit www.gulimina.com. For more about the Ohio Wesleyan Department of Music, including upcoming concerts and recitals, visit music.owu.edu.

Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier small, private universities, with more than 90 undergraduate majors, sequences, and courses of study, and 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Located in Delaware, Ohio, just minutes north of Ohio’s capital and largest city, Columbus, the university combines a globally focused curriculum with off-campus learning and leadership opportunities that translate classroom theory into real-world practice. OWU’s close-knit community of 1,850 students represents 45 states and 52 countries. Ohio Wesleyan was named to the 2010 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with distinction, is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” and is included on the “best colleges” lists of U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review. Learn more at www.owu.edu.